


Zillebeke

by WatMcGregor



Series: The Zillebeke Series [2]
Category: EastEnders (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:07:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28385997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WatMcGregor/pseuds/WatMcGregor
Summary: Second part of the Zillebeke series. You need to have read A Pair of Blue Eyes for this to make any sense.Originally posted in July of this year. It seems to have only taken me nine days to write. I must have been on something!
Relationships: Callum "Halfway" Highway/Ben Mitchell
Series: The Zillebeke Series [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2079237
Comments: 20
Kudos: 19





	Zillebeke

PROLOGUE

Walford, 1968 - David

“I, Ian Albert Beale, born on 1st March 1878, hereby revoke all former Wills and testamentary dispositions made by me and declare this to be my last Will and Testament disposing of all my assets.”

David Beale, born 1945 and being both the sole grandson of Ian Beale and overwhelmed with heat in the cramped Walford office of the solicitor on a warm April day, loosens his tie and lets his attention wander as the solicitor reads out a succession of bequests. The bulk of the estate goes to Bobby, David’s father, as befits the closest remaining member of Ian Beale’s family. His face remains impassive, but David would be willing to bet that Joan, his mother, would never do very well playing at poker. A small but very obvious smile plays about her lips as she listens to the list of properties and businesses her father-in-law retained a stake in around Walford before his timely death at the age of 90. She sees David watching her and winks at him, before schooling her features back into something more befitting the occasion.

He hears his own name, and swings his gaze back to the solicitor, who’s sweating in a stiff collar behind his mahogany desk.

“And to my grandson, David Benjamin Beale, I leave a bequest of two hundred pounds and a package of documents that I hope may assist him in his journalistic endeavours.”

David suppresses an eye roll. Although he’s only twenty-three, he’s been a staffer on a regional newspaper for nearly a year now, and yet his grandfather always maintained the fiction that he was struggling to get a foot on the journalistic ladder. He berates himself for being ungrateful, thinking a bequest of £200 is certainly nothing to be sneezed at, and takes the package the solicitor is holding out to him.

“Alright, love?” asks his mother as she links arms with him on the way back across Albert Square. “That weren’t a bad hour’s work, was it?”

“Mum!” He frowns at her, unwilling to seem mercenary, but in truth, the bequest from his grandfather is going to come in very handy.

“What? He don’t mind. He ain’t gonna hear us, is he? Not where he’s gone.”

She makes a point of looking towards the ground, and in spite of himself, David laughs. “Yer awful you are, ma.”

“He weren’t an easy man to love,” says Bobby, as he walks behind them. “There’s no glossin’ over it. What d’ya think’s in that package then, Davy?”

“Dunno,” says David. “Maybe a treasure map!”

“Oh, I see - two hundred smackers not good enough for ya?”

He grins round at his dad, still feeling a residual unease at joking about such things, and they continue on their way through the market. It’s bustling with activity. Vendors hawk their wares at the tops of their voices; customers haggle and shout raucous greetings to each other. From an open shop doorway a transistor radio plays, the dee-jay sounding full of the joys of spring as he introduces each record. "He might not have secured the top spot at the Eurovision Song Contest, but plucky English lad Cliff Richard did us proud. And so to him we say, ‘Congratulations’, which is coincidentally the name of his tune."

“Comin’ in for a cuppa?” asks his mum as they stop outside the back gate to their house.

“Yeah, go on then. I can’t be long though, gotta get back for Tracey. We’re supposed to be goin’ out tonight.”

“Spendin’ yer inheritance already, are ya?” asks his dad. “Nah. Just goin’ to the pictures.”

“Oh yeah, what you goin’ to see?”

“Stanley Kubrick, ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’.” 

“What’s that then? Science fiction weirdy stuff?” 

David laughs. “Yeah, dad, weirdy stuff.”

“I dunno why you have to be so way-out,” says his mum, letting them into the house. “Me, I prefer a nice romance.”

“You gotta live a little, mum. Why don’t you two go out, splash some of yer cash?”

His mum exhanges a glance with his dad, and they both sit down at the table. “We wanted to talk to you about that, Davy. Sit down a sec.”

She clasps her hands in front of herself on the table. “Now, we know you and Tracey bin havin’ a hard time lately - ”

“Ma - ”

“Let yer mother finish, Davy,” says his dad.

“We know it ain’t easy for ya, but we knew we were goin’ to be left a tidy sum from yer grandad, and we thought we’d like to use some of it to buy you a place. We wanna help out.”

“Ma, you can’t do that!”

“Yes we can, Davy,” says his dad. “It’s a sound investment, ain’t it? We want somewhere for our grandchildren to grow up safe and sound, don’t we? When ya get around to havin’ ‘em, that is.  
Somewhere better than that hovel yer livin’ in now.”

David toys with the package of documents he’s placed in front of him on the table. It’s complicated, and it’s not something he wants to discuss with his parents. At least until he knows for sure what’s going on with Tracey. “Let me talk to Tracey about it, please?”

“Well, alright,” says his mum. “But I can’t imagine what there is to talk about.” 

“I just - ” David sighs. “I don’t know if - ”

“Leave the boy alone,” says his father quickly. “He’ll make the right decision. Now, whatcha got in that package, eh?”

As his mum gets up to make the tea, David slides a thumb underneath the flap of the envelope, and tips the contents out onto the table. Scores of photos fall out, along with copies of birth and death certificates, and he looks up at his dad, mystified.

“Ah!” says Bobby. “I know what this is. Me dad was always on about someone researchin’ the family tree. He’ll have decided you could do it, seein’ as yer a journalist.”

“Bet he thought there’d be some juicy stories in amongst it all,” adds Joan.

“Let’s have a look then,” says Bobby, sifting through the photos. He grins. “Well I’m darned. That’s me when I was three.” He holds it up for David to see. “Weren’t I a lovely baby?”

David rolls his eyes. Some of the photos are sepia-tinted, old; others are torn at the edges; there are duplicates of a few of them. He pulls out a shot of a soldier, a young man who looks no more than his age now. He’s staring straight at the camera, chin slightly raised, looking smart in his uniform, with an expression that seems…what? Defiant? Arrogant? He looks like he wouldn’t have stood for any nonsense.

“Who’s this?” he asks. 

“Let’s have a look?”

He slides the picture over to his dad, and watches as he peers closely at it, turning it over to look for any writing on the back but finding nothing. “’S old, ain’t it?” Bobby says. “First world war, I should say.” He frowns as he pores over it, and then his face clears. “I tell you who that was! After me grandad died, me granny Kathy took up with a new husband -”

“Great-gran was married twice?” asks David. “I didn’t think they did that in those days. Weren’t it a huge scandal?”

“Not so’s I know. She had Ian with me grandad, and then she got together with a Mitchell, and they had a boy, and I reckon this is him. This is yer Great-Uncle Ben, one step removed. We gave you yer middle name for him.”

“What happened to him?”

"He got killed in the war, didn’t he?” asks Joan, placing cups and saucers in front of them both. “I always remember your dad talkin’ about him as if he’d won the Victoria Cross or somethin’.”

“Nah, he weren’t never decorated. He went missin’, presumed killed. Battle of Ypres, weren’t it?” Bobby nods as the details come back to him. “Yeah, I reckon he’s out there somewhere, in one of them massive graveyards under a cross.”

David takes back the photograph. There’s something about the young man’s expression that draws him in. “How old was he? When he went missin’?”

“No idea,” says Bobby. “Probably about your age, I should think.” “What a waste, eh?” sighs Joan. “All those poor boys.”

“Right then,” says Davy, staring down at the fading picture. “I will do some research, and that’s where I’ll start. Great-Uncle Ben.”

“You’re late,” says Tracey as he races up to the cinema. She’s leaning up against the railing outside, arms folded tight around herself and cigarette smoked almost down to the filter.

“Sorry, got talkin’ with me mum and dad,” puffs David, leaning in for a kiss.

She inclines her face away from him, and stubs her cigarette out on the pavement with her shoe. “How did it go? Are you in the same wealth bracket as my family now?”

“Nah, course not.” He cracks a grin. “Think me mum and dad might be though.”

“Ugh!” She grimaces. “New money. Come along then, are we going to see this picture or not?” She turns and walks authoritatively into the cinema, David trailing behind her.

Most of ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ passes him by that evening. His mind wanders during the interminable opening sequence, and never really comes back to the film. Now that he’s got a bit of money, he thinks he’d like to take a trip somewhere. Be alone for a while and work out what he really wants from life. He never really thought he’d be settled this young. He’d wanted to make it to Fleet Street, travel, write a book, get a different perspective on life. But then Tracey had come along at university and everything had stalled. Her family has money, but she won’t come into her trust-fund until the age of twenty-five – and even when she does, he’s not sure how he feels about being a ‘kept man’.

He pictures again that sepia-toned photograph of his great-uncle. He looked like he knew exactly what he wanted from life. David is willing to bet he didn’t put up with nonsense from his woman because he was too worried she’d leave him if he kicked up a fuss.

He starts to formulate a plan. Now that summer’s coming, what better than a cycling holiday in Belgium? He can visit the war graves, find Ben’s grave and maybe start a bit of research for the family tree. Who knows? He might even get a newspaper article out of it.

ONE - DAVID

A gentle breeze ruffles his hair as he adjusts the panniers on his bike and then wheels it up the causeway, peering about to get his bearings. The air is salty and seagulls wheel overhead, calling to each other with shrill, harsh cries. He’s booked a room in a youth hostel for the night, and he’s going to have to cycle about forty miles to get to it.

Setting off, he can feel the weight of the world dropping from his shoulders. For three blissful weeks he won’t need to think about his relationship. There won’t be anyone criticising his every move. His parents won’t be enquiring after Tracey in that quiet, kindly tone they’ve adopted recently, like someone’s just died. He feels a smile spread across his face as he cycles away from the port and into the Belgian countryside.

He'd had no idea of the scale of it all. Standing there on a Belgian hillside, looking out over rows and rows of identical graves, one for every soldier who’d fallen at Ypres, he’s astounded. Looking for Ben is going to be like looking for a needle in a haystack. He’s no idea where to begin. He begins wandering along the rows, noting that many of the stones are nameless, inscribed only with, 'A Soldier of the Great War, Known Unto God'. If, as his dad had told him, Ben was missing presumed dead, there’s little likelihood that he’ll be named on any of these gravestones, if David even knew where to start looking.

He takes a couple of photos with the new Canon he’d bought just last week and makes his way over to the museum that’s attached to the cemetery, tucked away in one corner. It’s empty apart from him and the attendant and, at the far side, a cleaner. As he drifts from display to display, dodging the cleaner who’s intent on mopping the floor around him, he tries to imagine if he could have died for King and country. He’s not so sure he could. That’s the thing these days; there’s less blind obedience to a cause. He looks at the images of bodies, piled up in trenches, and at the typical food supplies the soldiers were expected to live on, and shudders.

On the way out, he asks the attendant how he would go about tracing a particular soldier. “The only thing is,” he says, “his death was never registered officially. He was missing presumed dead.”

“Ah, this may be a problem, then,” says the attendant. “All I can suggest is you look at the records. What was the name?”

“Ben Mitchell. Private Ben Mitchell,” says David, stepping aside to let the cleaner pass him again. “We think he probably went missing in 1917.”

“English?” 

“Yes.”

The cleaner says something to the attendant in a language David doesn’t understand, and they both stare at David. “He says there is an Englishman out near where he lives. He thinks perhaps he may be called Ben.”

David smiles obligingly, wondering how this could possibly have a bearing on his search for his great-uncle.

“English,” insists the cleaner, elbowing David and nodding his head at him. He turns back to the attendant and speaks again.

“He says this man, he is the right age. He has been there for a long time, perhaps even since the war. If he is not the man you are looking for, he may have known him.”

David doubts either suggestion, but he thanks them politely and turns away. It seems he’s fallen at the first hurdle in his attempt to research this part of his family tree. He can almost hear his grandfather’s hectoring voice in his head, telling him it was no more than he expected. The cleaner follows him, tugging at his sleeve. He gestures to him to return to the desk, and picks up a pen that’s lying there. The attendant passes over a piece of paper, onto which the cleaner scribbles a few words and then presses the sheet into David’s hand.

“Thank you,” says David, still feeling that it’s hopeless. He raises a hand in farewell, and wanders back out into the cemetery, taking a last look at the thousands of neat white graves, and saying a farewell in his head to his great -uncle, lying there without even a name above his final resting place.

In the hostel that night, he revises his plans, staring down at the three words on the piece of paper he’d been given. He may not be able to track down his great-uncle, but this might be a lead he could use to carry out wider research about the first world war. Let’s face it, he’s here for another three weeks, and there’s no way he’s going home early with his tail between his legs. It could be an adventure. He might still get an article out of it somehow.

He asks at the reception desk of the hostel what the words mean, and starts to plot out a route to Riverside Farm, Zillebeke on the cycling map he brought with him.

It’s not what he expected. He’d imagined a rural idyll, especially after his cycle ride from the port to the hostel two days before, but the last part of his journey takes him along a dual carriageway, and he takes the exit he’d plotted out the night before feeling hot and irritable at all the lorries that had passed him, belching fumes in their wake.

Once off the main road, though, he’s soon back on country lanes that are filled with birdsong, their hedgerows green with spring shoots. He stops to consult his map, cycles a little further around a bend, and then there’s an entrance to a farmyard on his right.

He wheels to a stop and sees a couple just outside the back door of the farmhouse, folding sheets and bickering. What starts his heart racing, though, is that they’re bickering in English.

He watches a little longer. They’re both old, in their seventies, he’d say. The woman has a Belgian accent, but the man… the man still has a trace of cockney to his.

It’s not David’s great-uncle, though. This man is skinny and tall, stooped at the shoulders, with his bryl-creemed hair mostly grey, although David can see that it was once dark. He may not be Ben, but with an accent like that he might well have been in the same battalion as Ben. Maybe this isn’t such a wild goose chase after all.

“Stop pulling so hard!” he hears the woman say. “You will pull me over.”

They each have hold of the opposite ends of the sheets, and are stretching them out to rid them of the creases, although the man seems to be trying to pull them from the woman’s hands.

“Always, is this game,” she complains. “I am too old for this. One day I will hire servants to do this for me, then I won’t have to endure you any longer.” The annoyed tone to her voice is at odds with the wide smile on her face.

“You love havin’ to endure me,” teases the man.

The woman hands him the corners she was holding so that he can fold them with his, and then stops to pin back the strand of grey hair that’s fallen from her bun. It’s then that she sees David, peering into the yard from the lane outside. “Is there something you wanted?”

He dismounts from his bike, and wheels it into the yard. “Uh, I’m sorry to bother ya, but I’m looking for someone. Well, not exactly looking for him, more anyone who might’ve known him, I was given your address.” He turns to the man. “Are… are you Ben?”

They exchange a glance that David can’t decipher.

“No, I ain’t,” says the man. “Why would you be lookin’ for someone called Ben?” He’s not exactly unwelcoming, but he sounds suspicious. He stares at David through narrowed eyes that are a vivid blue, despite the lines in his face.

David turns to fish in his cycle pannier, pulling out his satchel and from that, pulling out the photograph of his great-uncle that he’d brought with him. “I was told you might be able to tell me about this man. He died in the first world war we think.”

The man hands the sheet he’s been holding across to the woman, and takes the photograph. David notices that his hand shakes with age as he does so. He stares down at the picture for a long time, and David thinks he sees a faint smile play around his lips.

“Is all there is to say, then, non?” asks the woman. “He died.” She makes a throwaway gesture. “There is nothing more we can tell you.”

“Why you so interested in im?” asks the man, handing the picture back eventually.

“He’s related to me,” says David. “Was related to me. His mum was me grandad’s mum. Different dads, though, so that kind of makes him me great-uncle, once removed. All I know is that he died in the Battle of Ypres, and I just wanted to see if I could find out any more about him.”

“Like what?” asks the woman. She seems defensive, almost angry.

The man puts a hand on her shoulder, and they exchange another glance. Then they begin conversing in what David assumes is the woman’s language. He can’t make out a single word, but the man seems to be trying to persuade her of something. Eventually, David thinks they reach agreement only because the woman shrugs and turns to go back into the farmhouse.

The old man gives David another hard stare. “Yer definitely related, you say?”

David nods. “Of course. Me grandad died recently and left me all these photos and family papers. I just wanted to try and find out a bit more about the family.”

“An’ you thought you’d start with Ben?”

“Yeah, thought I’d come an’ visit his grave, but I’ve got no idea how to find it. D’you know anything about him?”

“A fair bit.”

David’s hopes rise again. “Yeah? That’s magic! Can you tell me?”

“Nah.” His eyes are sparkling, and anger begins to prickle at the back of David’s neck. This man is just toying with him. He should have given this all up as a bad job.

“I’m not goin’ to tell ya anythin’ about ‘im,” says the man. “But I know someone who could, if we could just persuade him.” He glances across the yard to the farmhouse, and calls, “Ben!”

Turning, David sees that another man is standing in the doorway, no doubt alerted to their visitor by the woman. He’s old too, in his early seventies, David guesses. His hair is thinning; there’s a pallor to his face and he leans heavily on a stick, but David watches as the man tilts his chin, and the action and the look on his face is so reminiscent of the young man in David’s photo, that he recognises him immediately, despite the intervening years.

This is his great-uncle.

DAVID

“So, you think yer related to me?” asks Ben.

“I am. My name’s David Beale, and your mum was my dad’s granny,” says David. “Me great- gran.”

Ben takes a few seconds to work out the family tree in his head. “Barely, then,” he says. He turns to go back into the house. “You’d better come in, hadn’t ya?”

David sees him exchange a look with the other man as he does so. He gets the feeling he’s not totally welcome, but he’s so overwhelmed at realising his great-uncle didn’t, in fact, die in the war that he can shrug it off. Just wait til he tells them back at home! He wheels his bike across to prop it up against the wall of the house and follows the man inside.

Inside, the farmhouse is homely, if cheaply furnished. Several coats hang from a coat rack just inside the door, three pairs of wellington boots placed underneath in a neat row. There’s a smell of freshly-baked bread as Ben leads the way towards the kitchen, shuffling along the passageway with his stick tapping on the floor as he does so.

“Sorry,” says David, placing his satchel on the floor as Ben gestures to him to take a seat at the big pine kitchen table. “I can’t get over the fact that you’re not dead!”

“Nor can I, most days,” says Ben, dropping heavily into the chair opposite him.

The woman is already in the kitchen, leaning up against the kitchen counter, still looking wary of David. She pinches at the tea towel she holds, agitating it into folds. A few moments later the other man enters the room and sits beside Ben, but not before he’s brushed a soft hand absent-mindedly over the back of his neck. David looks to Ben for a reaction, but the old man appears not to have even noticed. Has David stumbled upon one of those menage-a-trois? Are all these old people involved? Wait til he tells Tracey – she thinks theirs is the generation that’s pushing the boundaries.

“So, what can we do for ya?” asks Ben. He turns to the woman before David can reply. “Would ya mind makin’ us a cuppa, Frankie?”

She glares at him but he stares her out and, again, David feels like there’s a silent conversation going on. Eventually, the woman – Frankie – turns with ill grace to fill the kettle and set it on the gas hob.

“Why don’tcha tell us exactly who ya are, first?” suggests the other man.

“Callum,” says Ben, in a warning tone. He turns back to David. “Very protective of me, these two. If yer up to no good they’ll have ya out on yer ear before ya know it.”

David smiles uneasily. “Not up to no good, honest. It’s like I said, I’m researching my family tree, and I suppose I thought there might be a story in it.”

“A story?” asks Frankie. “What kind of a story?”

David tries not to feel intimidated by the scrutiny of Frankie and Callum, and puts all his best journalistic skills into use. “Well,” he says, spreading his palms. “You’ve got to admit there’s some interest here. You’re supposed to have died in the war, and yet here you are,” he glances round at Callum and then Frankie. “Living in uh…well…”

“Livin’ in what?” asks Callum in a dangerously quiet voice. 

“Um, well, not exactly typical living arrangements.”

“Not exactly typ- ?” Ben splutters out a laugh, and turns to look up at Frankie again. “I reckon ‘e thinks you, me ‘n’ ‘im are all livin’ in sin together, Frank.” His laugh turns into a cough. “Oh my! That’s hilarious,” he scrapes out between coughs. The coughs turns into a wheeze, and he takes a moment to catch his breath. Callum moves to stand up to attend to him, but he waves him away. “I’m alright. Don’t fuss, Callum.”

David blushes. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply anything.”

The kettle whistles on the hob and Frankie lifts it and starts pouring water into a teapot, which she sets down with a thump in front of the only empty chair at the table, before turning to gather cups and saucers and a jug of milk.

“Why don’tcha tells us a bit about yerself first, eh?” insists Callum. “Then we can decide what questions we’ll answer for ya.”

“Uh, what d’ya want to know?” says David, wondering why they keep referring to ‘we’ when it’s his great-uncle he wants to talk to.

“Tell me about me family back in England,” says Ben. David notices he doesn’t say ‘back home’. “OK.” This David can do. He sits forward, elbows on the table. 

“So, your mum was Kathy, right?” Ben nods, watching him through narrowed eyes.

“She was married to Pete Beale and they had a son - ”

“Ian,” supplies Ben. “Pompous ol’ arse, he was. Did he improve with age?” 

“Not really.” David grins, delighted at Ben’s concise description.

“Managed to dodge conscription an’ all,” says Ben in an aside to Callum. He taps the side of his nose with a wavering hand. “Money, see …”

“Was Bobby around when you were back in England?” asks David. “Ian’s son?” 

“Scrawny little kid. He musta bin about ten when I left for the fightin’.”

“Well, he’s me dad.”

Ben nods slowly, digesting the information. “An’ what about you? Brothers? Sisters? What d’ya do for a livin’? You married?”

David smiles, amused at the sudden barrage of questions. “I’m an only child. I’ve got a girlfriend. I work as a reporter, and I - ”

“What?” asks Ben, at the same time as Callum stands up abruptly. “Alright, that’s yer time up,” says the taller man.

David gazes from one to the other, bemused. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand - ”

“You have heard them,” chips in Frankie. “You are not welcome here.” 

“But I - ”

“Mighta known,” says Callum. “the moment ya said ya thought there might be a story in it. Come on, sling yer ‘ook.”

David looks across to Ben for help, but the old man is staring down at his hands, clasped together on the table in front of him. His lips are pressed tight together.

“Please,” says David, half-rising. “I don’t know what you think my agenda is here, but there really isn’t one. It’s like I said, I’m doing this purely from an interest in my family.”

“Your ‘agenda’,” says Callum, “is that yer trying to snoop into things that don’t concern ya.” He turns to Ben and waves a hand in David’s direction. “I mean, how do we even know he’s who he says he is?”

“I don’t understand what ya think I’m goin’ to uncover!” exclaims David, determined not to be put off now that he’s actually found his great-uncle. “I feel like yer all hidin’ something and I’m not interested in that. I just wanna be able to go home to me parents and tell them that yer still alive. That’s good news, ain’t it? They’ll be pleased.”

He pushes his chair back. It scrapes loudly on the tiled floor. Ben is looking up at him appraisingly, chewing his bottom lip between his teeth. He sits forward. “It’s complicated news, is what it is. There are things we’d rather not shout to the world, and I don’t know what gives ya the right to come in ‘ere and start lookin’ under stones that don’t concern ya. Stones ya shouldn’t even be anywhere near.”

“An’ you can go home to yer family and tell ‘em Ben’s alive, can’t ya?” adds Callum. “And then tell ‘em to leave us alone. We ain’t interested in tearful reunions, or- ”

“Who even are you?” snaps David, becoming annoyed now. “I came here to see Ben and it seems you and yer wife have muscled yer way into a conversation that shouldn’t even concern you!”

There’s silence after he’s finished, in which he realises with horror that he’s over-stepped the mark. First rule of journalism: never annoy the subject so much they refuse to speak to you. He curses himself and bends to pick up his satchel.

Across from him, Ben is smiling faintly. “Well, ya’ve answered that question,” he says, sharing a look with Callum. His eyes are crinkling with humour, the crows’ feet around them becoming even more pronounced.

“What question?” asks David, preparing to take his leave.

“Yer definitely related to me. Fiery little bugger, ain’t he?” he smiles at Callum, inviting him to share his amusement, but Callum shakes his head back at him, stony-faced. “Listen,” says Ben, still staring at Callum. “Callum, why dontcha take yer ‘wife’ an’ go an’ sit in the parlour while I have a little chat with our visitor, eh?”

“Ben,” says the man, warningly.

“What harm can it do, this late in life, eh?”

David sees a silent battle of wills play out between the two men until, eventually, Callum shrugs his shoulders with a sigh, and leaves the room.

“I hope you know what you are doing,” says Frankie, as she crosses the kitchen to follow him.

As their footsteps recede down the passageway, Ben and David stare at each other in the suddenly silent kitchen. Ben indicates the teapot with a jerk of his chin. “You’d best pour. I ain’t as strong as I used to be, and Frankie does insist on makin’ tea by the gallon.” He leans towards David conspiratorially. “Belgian, see. No appreciation of the fine art of tea-makin’.”

“So, she and Callum took you in during the war?” asks David, picking up the teapot and pouring steaming, mud-coloured tea into two of the cups.

“Nah, nah, nah.” says Ben. “No questions from you, young man. I gotta few conditions first. You listen to me, you decide if you can live with them conditions, then you ask yer questions, understand?”

“OK,” says David, although he can’t resist a little grumble. “Feels like I’m talking to the secret service, though.”

Ben grins. “I think I might like you, David Beale. Ya remind me of meself when I was your age. Stroppy.”

David remembers the photograph of the young soldier and feels oddly flattered. He hands across Ben’s cup and saucer to him, and the old man lifts the cup to his lips with a shaking hand, before slurping from it noisily. “Ah!” he says with a sigh. “Nothin’ like a good cuppa tea, is there?” He places the cup back in the saucer and fixes David with a stern eye. “Right young man. Anythin’ I tell ya – or the others tell ya – is for your ears only, understand? Always supposin’ I can convince ‘em to talk to ya, cos it’s not lookin’ promisin’ at the moment. I s’pose ya can share it with yer parents if ya like, but this ain’t for public consumption. There’s a few, uh… delicate areas that no one else can know about.” He sits forward in his seat, his shoulders hunching. “So, no puttin’ it in a newspaper. No speakin’ to any authorities about it. Understand?”

“Of course,” says David, pushing his original idea of an article to the back of his mind for now but ever-more intrigued.

“We’re all gettin’ to the end of our lives,” continues Ben. “Some of us quicker than others, so there ain’t so much damage could be caused now, but I don’t want Callum and Frankie to have the extra worry.”

“They seem really protective of you,” says David. “You all seem really close.”

A wide smile spreads across Ben’s face. “Crafty one, ain’t ya? We ain’t started on the part where you ask yer questions yet, so stop tryin’ to worm yer way into it. I need to know that you understand the seriousness of what I’m askin’.”

“Yes of course. Sorry!” says David.

“When we’re all dead, we won’t care whatcha do with anythin’ we tell ya, but not right now.” 

“Understood,” says David. “Can I ask a question now?”

Ben nods.

“How is it that you’re still alive?” 

“Good question.”

When Callum peers round the door forty-five minutes later, David has had the full story of his and Ben’s retreat from the frontline up to the point when they camped out in the barn across the farmyard. Ben’s an entertaining storyteller, and David is beginning to like him a lot.

“We’re just in the barn,” says Ben, as Callum comes into the room. “Just at the point when yer screamin’ yer head off cos yer leg hurts.”

Callum looks exasperated. “That ain’t how I remember it.” He throws David an apologetic smile. “Sorry about earlier. We was a bit suspicious of ya, but if his lordship’s decided yer alright to talk to….”

“’S OK,” says David. “I get it.”

“Anyway,” says Callum, sitting down with them. “That barn ain’t a barn any more, is it? Luxury house now, after Frankie had to sell off some of the land. Cryin’ shame.”

“Yep, it was a special place alright,” says Ben, giving him a look that David can’t decipher. “It’s changed a lot round here,” he adds, turning back to David. “You come in on the dual carriageway?”

David nods.

“That weren’t there fifteen years ago. This was the middle of the countryside. Bloomin’ lovely, it was. Miles from anywhere.”

David sees the two men share a look that’s full of regret.

“Why don’tcha get the photos out, Callum?” suggests Ben. Callum sighs, obviously long-suffering, and heaves himself out of the chair. He rests a hand on Ben’s shoulder as he passes him on the way out of the kitchen again.

“How long ya in Belgium for then?” asks Ben.

“Oh, three weeks. I’m stayin’ in a youth hostel just outside Ypres.” 

“Blimey! Bit basic, is it?”

David grins. “Just a bit.”

“Right, well, there’s a spare room here ya can have.” 

“Oh no, I couldn’t possibly -”

“Yes ya can. That way, I can keep an eye on ya.” Ben smiles sweetly, but David gets the feeling there’s a threat beneath the smile.

When Callum returns to the room, carrying a battered leather suitcase which spills over with photographs when he prises it open, Ben says, “The boy’s stayin’ for a few nights.”

“Ben- ” begins Callum.

“He’s stayin’,” insists Ben. “I’ll ask Frankie to make up a room for ‘im. Now, let’s have a look at these photos.”

David cycles back to the hostel that evening, ready to pack up his things and return to the farmhouse the next morning, feeling that he’s entered an entirely different world. He’d spent the afternoon poring over photographs of Ben’s time since he came away from the battlefield. Almost every one had been of the three of them in some combination or other. Ben with a pig-tailed Frankie who looked almost unrecognisable, playing at cards and clearly one or other of them cheating, from the wide grins on their faces. Ben and a very handsome Callum, at work fixing fence posts in their shirtsleeves, leaning on their shovels to smile to the camera. Frankie and Callum, a little older, deep in conversation in the parlour, the photograph dark from the low light on what was clearly a winter’s evening and the fire dying in the grate in front of them. There’s one that David had caught only a glimpse of, before Ben had shoved it back into the bottom of the suitcase. A shot of a young, shirt-sleeved Callum and Ben sitting beside a stream, taken from behind, Ben with his head resting on Callum’s shoulder.

“Ma?” David asks when the call connects from the phone box outside the hostel. “It’s me, Davy! I’ve got so much to tell ya! What? Yeah, yeah, course I’m eating properly. I’m not gonna tell you what I’ve discovered, I wanna see yours and dad’s faces when I tell ya. I just wanted to let you know that I’ve been invited to stay with some people I’ve met, so I may not be able to call so often. I’ll try and find a phone box, though. What? No I ain’t called Tracey. Yeah, OK, I will. I will! I said I would. OK, sorry. Yeah, I’ll keep safe. They’re nice people. I’ll be alright, promise. OK, me money’s running out, speak to you soon. Love ya.”

He places the receiver back on the cradle and steps out of the phone box without calling Tracey. What he hadn’t told his mother is that he’s uneasy about going back to the farm tomorrow. He’d been perplexed all the time he’d been there as to the relationships between the three old people. He’d finally decided the other man and the woman must be married, but they wore no rings on their fingers. Perhaps they were living in sin.

As he’d left though, turning on his bike to give one last wave from the road, he’d seen something that had turned that theory upside down. Ben and Callum were standing in the doorway in deep conversation. Thinking themselves unseen, Callum had put an arm around Ben’s shoulders and kissed him on the top of his head.

David had watched as Ben leaned into the older man’s embrace.

CALLUM

“So, Ben spin you a few yarns yesterday, did he?” asks Callum when David wheels his cycle into the yard the next morning. He’s sitting on a bench up against the farmhouse sunning himself, and looks at him with eyes narrowed against the light.

“Well, he told me about how he had to drag you off the battlefield,” says David, parking his bike and sitting down beside him. Callum notices he keeps a good distance between them both. He seems wary for some reason, less bolshy than he’d been yesterday. “He told me about fightin’ off those Germans with his bare hands.”

Callum grins to himself, and turns to face the boy. “There weren’t no Germans, he’s havin’ you on.” He shakes his head, amused at the look on the boy’s face. “That story, well, it were dramatic enough without the embellishments.”

“So he lied to me?” asks David, sounding hurt and disappointed.

“He don’t lie, he just, uh, embroiders,” says Callum. “You probably got the truth in there somewhere.” He chuckles. “He’s a bugger sometimes.” His amusement fades when he sees that David is genuinely hurt. “Listen, don’t take it personal. He just does it to entertain himself.”

He sits forward and picks at his fingernails. “He’s… he’s dyin’, did he tell ya?”

From the corner of his eye, he sees David shake his head. He can well imagine the look of shock or pity or polite sympathy on the boy’s face without having to see it. He scrunches up his eyes against the sun momentarily, and sees red beneath his eyelids. “Lung cancer. We don’t know how long he’s got.”

“I’m sorry,” says David. “I, uh… I know how close you all are. That must be a terrible thing to deal with. For you, especially.”

Callum swings round to look at him. “He told ya?”

David shakes his head, staring away across the yard in the direction of the well, long-since disused with a board placed over it, weighted down with a rock. “I, uh, saw you both, yesterday, when I was leavin’. I turned as I got to the lane outside and saw ya.”

Callum casts his mind back. “Ah.” He refuses to feel shame about it, not after all these years. He hopes the younger man isn’t judging.

David clears his throat in the silence that follows. “It must’ve been hard for you both, being homosexual – gay - in those days.”

Callum gets the impression from David’s tone of voice that he’s trying hard to be accepting. There’s an edge to his voice, though, that indicates his discomfort. Callum huffs out a laugh.

“Bein’ what? I don’t think we’ve ever bin that.” He sees that David’s about to object, and raises a hand. “Oh, I know that’s what the kids are startin’ to call it these days, but we never give it that name. Never give it any name. It’s just who we were. Ben and Callum, Callum and Ben. We weren’t anythin’, we just knew we cared for each other. You kids these days like to make a big political statement about it, but that weren’t our style. Couldn’ta bin. Not in them days.”

“I’m not…” begins David. “I’ve got a girlfriend.”

Callum nudges him with his elbow. “Well, don’t worry, it ain’t catchin’. And there’s no need to barricade yerself in yer room tonight. We’re both too old for any o’ that business anymore.” He grins, to let David know he’s joking, but the poor boy looks terrified. “Nah, when we first realised how we felt, we had no idea about any of that,” continues Callum, to spare him further embarrassment. “You know – makin’ a statement, the mechanics of it, if ya like. We just knew we cared about each other very deeply, an’ some of the other stuff came later.”

He’d intended to put the boy more at his ease, but looking round at him again, he can see that he’s just looking even more uncomfortable. He gives Callum a sickly grin, and they sit in silence together, soaking up the sun.

Callum closes his eyes and thinks back to that first morning after his return, when he and Ben had woken up in each other’s arms as if neither one had been willing to let go during the night for fear that the other would leave…

The light of dawn is still milky and soft through the open curtains. Callum comes to as he feels Ben stir in his arms, positioning his head more fully on Callum’s chest, and then the younger man lies quietly, his breathing steady and slow. From time to time Callum can feel a very faint tickle as Ben’s eyelashes flutter against his skin.

“Mornin’” he grunts eventually, twisting to look down at him.

At that, Ben raises his head and gives him a bleary smile. “Mornin’ you. Yer still ‘ere then.” “I am. Thinkin’ I might stay right ‘ere for the rest of me life.”  
Ben laughs gently. “Reckon Frankie might have a word or two to say about that. There’s work to be done. Always work.”

Callum buries his face in Ben’s hair, and plants soft kisses on the top of his head, until Ben twists round and captures his lips with his own.

“This alright?” he asks, drawing back.

“Perfect,” says Callum. He slides a hand over the back of Ben’s neck and draws him down again for another kiss, and they slowly and unwittingly begin to develop a motion, rocking against each other as they kiss. Callum can feel his prick stiffening, and his breath becoming as laboured as Ben’s, harsh in his ears. The rocking becomes more intense, more frenzied, neither of them able to stop it, until Ben suddenly freezes with a low grunt, and Callum feels his spending spurt warm over his thighs. He gasps, surprised at the sensation.

Immediately Ben buries his face in Callum’s shoulder and blurts out an anguished ‘Sorry’. 

“What for?” asks Callum with a soft laugh.

“I never knew that would happen,” says Ben, his face still hidden. “I’m sorry.”

“You ashamed?” asks Callum, trying and failing to get him to look at him. “You never had that happen with a girl?”

“I ain’t never had a girl,” says Ben. “I mean, who would look at me twice? All rough and common like I am.”

“I would,” says Callum, taking his face in his hands and forcing him to look at him. He dips his head to make eye contact with Ben. “I would look at ya twice. I’d look at ya til the end of time if ya let me.”

Ben twists away from him, avoiding his gaze. “Did ya get a bang on the ‘ead when you was on that battlefield an’ all?”

“I ain’t jokin’, Ben. I mean it. There ain’t nothin’ to be ashamed of here.”

“So,” says David, jolting Callum from his daydream. “The two of you, you deserted, basically, didn’t ya?”

Callum opens his eyes. “I s’pose that’s one word for it. I prefer to think of us as conscientious objectors.”

“But you went to war! You fought, at least to start with.”

“And that put us in the best position to object to it. Did he tell you much about it yesterday?”

David shakes his head. “Only that you both got injured and had to find your way away from the fighting somehow.”

“So he didn’t tell ya what it’s like just before yer about to go over the top? How they line up hundreds and hundreds of men, and draw their guns to shoot ya in case yer too scared to go over? And how yer whole body shakes with the fear of what’ll face ya when yer over there? He didn’t describe what it felt like to go into that hell, with yer friends and comrades fallin’ on every side, blown apart while the best you can hope for is that when you die, it’ll be quick and you won’t know nothin’ about it, even as yer already starin’ death in the face?”

“No,” says David, subdued.

“And it ain’t just the once. They don’t say ‘oh well, you’ve done yer bit, you can go ‘ome now’. No, you do it once, an’ if ya survive, like Ben did, they patch ya up and send ya over again. And again and again, until ya die. And what does it achieve?”

“Well, the world’s a more peaceful place now,” suggests David mildly.

“Is it?” Callum scoffs. “Is it really? We’ve had another world war since then, an’ there’s skirmishes breakin’ out all over the world again now – Vietnam an’ the rest - so you tell me what the point was. All them young men who never lived to see their loved ones again. All them poor blokes who never became fathers -”. He can feel himself getting angry, the age-tremor in his hands becoming more pronounced. He takes a deep breath and sits back on the bench, shaking his head to himself.

“Did you never want to be a father?” asks David, sounding like he’s leaping on anything to stop Callum getting worked up. “Did Ben never want to?”

Callum shrugs. “Never thought about it. I mean, I had a girl, back in England, but - ” 

“Here y’are. Thought ya’d got lost.”

They both squint round to see Ben leaning on his stick at the corner of the house. “Ya comin’ in? Frankie’s just made apple cake. Still warm from the oven.” Ben kisses his thumb and forefinger in a gesture of appreciation. “Come on.”

“I’ll be there in a bit,” says Callum, as David stands to grab his bags and follows Ben into the house.

“We won’t save ya any,” says Ben over his shoulder.

Callum smiles fondly, until the smile fades and he takes a few breaths and gazes around the yard. He can just see part of the orchard through the stone arch to the left. The trees are looking unkempt and uncared for these days. A lot of the fruit goes to waste now they’re all too old and doddery to pick it all. It’s almost peaceful, sitting there in the spring sunshine, aside from the faint sounds of a wireless drifting across from the new house. Not as peaceful as it used to be in the old days, when the nearest dwelling was a good six miles away. These days it feels like the world’s closing in, getting that little bit smaller, year on year. The blackbird still sings in the yard though. There is that, at least.

Callum closes his eyes again and ponders David’s question. In truth, he’d been perfectly happy to forgo being a father to be with Ben. It had never really been a choice, it just ‘was’, and it had caused him no heartache. He remembers a conversation they’d had once though, in the early days when Ben still fretted that he was preventing Callum from living a proper life.

They were in bed again. It was only a month after Callum had returned, mid-December, and they were still finding their way with each other. The night was dark, their faces lit only by the dying fire in the tiny bedroom grate.

“God, if the lads from the battalion could see us now!” exclaims Ben, tracing patterns on Callum’s chest with his finger.

“ How d’ya mean?” asks Callum, lulled almost to sleep by the warmth of Ben’s limbs tangled with his and the occasional flicker of the embers in the fireplace that were sending shadows chasing up the bedroom walls.

“They’d wonder what it was all for, wouldn’t they?” murmurs Ben. “We was spared, only to end up like this.”

Callum twists his head to stare at him. “Like what?”

Ben is silent for a few seconds. Then he props himself up on an arm and stares closely at Callum. “Did ya never wanna be a father?”

“Never really thought about it,” says Callum sleepily. “Did you?”

“Nah, not with my disposition, my family. I wouldn’t wanna put that on any poor kid. You could though. If I weren’t standin’ in yer way. D’ya never think about that?”

Callum rolls over and takes him in his arms. “I ain’t never thought about it, and I never would want to. I’ve found the person I wanna spend the rest of me life with, Ben, and that’s all that matters to me.”

“But what if a girl comes along? Weeks or months from now. What if ya find someone you like better? Someone ya look at and think, yeah, I can have a respectable life with her - ”

“A respectable - ?”

“I can forget about all this sentimental nonsense with Ben. I can have a family, a decent life. Be respected by the rest of the world an’ stop skulkin’ in the shadows.”

Callum narrows his eyes. “Sentimental nonsense? Is that what ya think this is?”

Ben pulls away and sits up, hugging his knees, and Callum drinks in the sight of his smooth back, golden in the firelight. “I saved ya. It stands to reason you’d feel grateful, wanna - ”

“You think I’m in bed with ya right now out of gratitude?” asks Callum, feeling his anger rising. “That’s bleedin’ ridiculous!”

Ben glances round at him. “All I’m sayin’ is, ya don’t havta stay. Not if you decide this ain’t for you any longer. There’d be no shame in - ”

“Don’t be an idiot, Ben!”

He falls silent, and Callum’s anger hangs in the air between them.

“What about Frankie?” begins Ben, just when Callum’s beginning to relax again.

Callum sighs loudly in exasperation, and wrestles him to the mattress. “Stop! I know what I want, Ben, and it ain’t Frankie. It’s you.” He dips his head to kiss Ben, leaving a trail of kisses from his lips to his neck, his shoulders, back to his jaw. “You’re mine. My beautiful boy, and you don’t have to fret. I ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

Nevertheless, it had felt like their first argument, and both were sulky the next day. Frankie had gazed from one to the other until, eventually, she’d pulled Callum to one side. “What is wrong between you both? You have argued, yes?”

“Not exactly,” Callum had sighed.

Frankie had placed her hands on her hips, mystified. “Then what?”

“I told him I cared about him, that I wouldn’t ever wanna find a woman and become a father.”

She’d narrowed her eyes in a frown. “And for this, you are angry with each other?” Her frown had turned into an eye roll as he’d shrugged. “You English, I will never, for as long as I live, understand you!” She’d wandered off, muttering something to herself in her own language.

Sitting there on the bench, fifty years later, he chuckles to himself at the memory. That’s the thing about Ben though. Underneath that brash, jokey exterior, he’s a muddled bag of insecurities, always has been. He’s putting on a cheery front at the moment, but Callum knows he’s terrified about the cancer. Sometimes, when they’re in bed, he’ll wake to the realisation that Ben’s been lying there open-eyed in the dark for hours. He always tells Callum his brain is making sure he sees as many minutes of life with Callum as he possibly can.

Truth be told, Callum’s terrified too. Terrified of what will come…after. Life on his own.

He puts those thoughts to the back of his mind and struggles to stand up, then makes his way into the house. As he shuffles down the passageway to the kitchen he can hear Ben holding forth, telling yet more tall tales of his bravery on the battlefield, making even Frankie laugh. He rolls his eyes fondly.

He takes his place at the kitchen table and smiles his thanks at Ben for saving him a piece of apple cake, all plated up and ready for him in his place. Frankie pours him a cup of tea, thick and strong, the way he likes it, and as he spoons in two sugars, he listens to the banter that’s going on around him. David seems to have settled in immediately, and he can tell that even Frankie’s beginning to warm to him. He winks at her as she looks in his direction, and she throws him a small smile meant only for the two of them. In truth, they’re both realising that David’s appearance has probably happened at exactly the right time. He’s a welcome distraction for Ben. Callum watches the young man and wonders if he represents what Ben’s child would have been like, if he’d ever had one.

Eventually, Frankie stirs. “Well, I must go to my twin tub.”

Callum and Ben begin laughing, and David looks around at them all, mystified.

“Accordin’ to Frankie,” explains Callum, “the twin tub is the greatest invention known to man.”

“Well,” says Frankie, “if you have broken your back all your life washing by hand, using a mangle, you would think so too, but no – you men are too lazy to wash anything. Frankie must do everything. And it is true, whoever invented the twin tub must have been a genius. Or a woman, which is the same thing, non?”

“Get on with ya,” jeers Ben. He coughs, and the cough turns into a wheeze again, like yesterday. 

“Alright?” asks Callum, watching him carefully.

Ben nods, and pulls a handkerchief from his pocket with which to wipe his mouth. “Think I’m gonna go up and have a lie-down for half hour. All this excitement’s wore me out.”

He stands unsteadily, and follows Frankie out of the room, leaving David to stare at Callum with concern in his eyes. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to tire him.”

Callum shakes his head. “Don’t worry. He always has to have a little lie-down before lunch. It ain’t just cos of you. I’ll go up and check he’s alright in a bit.”

He sips from his tea and then cleans his plate of the crumbs of his slice of apple cake with a moistened finger. “Which bedroom’s Frankie given ya?”

“One on the right at the top of the stairs.”

“Ah,” Callum smiles in recognition. “My old room, before …” he trails off, not wanting to embarrass the boy again, and finishes by saying, “when I first come here.”

“So you and Ben weren’t together when you arrived here?” 

“Nah, not for some time.”

“Can I ask you something?” 

Callum nods.

“You said you’d had a girlfriend, so how is it you fell for Ben? Was it only women, for you, before Ben?”

“Only women,” says Callum nodding emphatically. “I had a sweetheart back in London. That’s what confused me, really, cos I never felt the intense emotion for her that I felt for Ben. It scared me, at first. I spent a long time confused, scared.”

“Did you know he felt the same?”

“Not at first, not until he more or less told me.” Callum smiles at the memory. “He wanted me to stay, when the war ended, but I was all for goin’ back ‘ome. Back to London. I thought once I got ‘ome, things’d go back to normal.” He glances up at David. “I set off, too.”

“You went back to London?”

“Nah, never got there. I set off but had to turn back.” Callum sits back in his chair, rubbing a hand over his stomach, full now with apple cake, remembering how sick he’d felt with every step he’d taken back then. “You ever had a moment when yer heart tells you what yer head just can’t see? Almost like a thought arrives fully formed, but it ain’t come from yer brain.” Callum taps his chest. “Nah, it’s come from here, and once ya hear it, once ya take notice, there’s no way ya can ever ignore it.”

David shakes his head, looking like he’s hanging on Callum’s every word, his unease from earlier seemingly forgotten.

“Well that’s what happened to me. As I stepped out that day, strugglin’ to put one foot in front of the other, takin’ meself further and further away from ‘im, I heard a voice in me head say 'you belong with him'.

“And you turned round and came back again?” asks David.

“I turned round and come back again,” confirms Callum. “And once I’d declared meself to him, I threw meself into bein’ with him immediately. I think it took him longer to get used to it, but I knew what I wanted, once I’d heard that voice in me ‘ead. No holdin’ back, I give everythin’ to ‘im.” He smiles at David, and shrugs his shoulders. “When ya know, you know.”

Later, climbing the stairs to their room, he leans heavily on the bannister and pulls himself up with a heavy tread. Gettin’ towards the end, he tells himself. An’ p’raps that’s no bad thing. Not when youngsters like David are comin’ up through the ranks, full of beans and ready to take all life’s got to throw at ‘em. He’s not had a bad life, all things considered, neither of them have.

He pushes open the door to their room and sees that Ben’s actually managed to get some shut-eye, his hand that’s resting on the covers folded into a fist. He smooths down the counterpane gently so as not to wake him and then, crossing to the window, he stares out at the yard, his eyes alighting on the lane outside. He wonders what it must have felt like, for Ben, watching him walk away all those decades ago. Much like it feels for Callum himself now, he guesses. With every cough, every struggle for breath, Ben seems to be walking further along a track that Callum can’t follow yet.

“Come to check I ain’t dead?”

Callum turns at the voice. “I wish ya wouldn’t joke about it.”

Ben is blinking up at him with a faint smile on his face. “You’re silhouetted against the light.”

“Sorry,” says Callum, crossing back to sit beside him on the bed.

“Nah,” says Ben. “It’s one o’ the first memories I’ve got of ya, sittin’ on a tree stump with the light behind ya, tellin’ me about yer mum’s jam roly-poly.”

“Yeah?” Callum smiles, the memory long-gone, and reaches out a hand to smooth the hair from Ben’s forehead.

“Yeah,” says Ben. “You was a handsome devil back then.” 

“I’m a handsome devil now!”

“True. P’raps a bit weathered, but you are. You’ll do for me.”

They smile fondly at each other. From downstairs, Callum can hear Frankie and David conversing, their voices indistinct, but occasional laughter breaking through. Seems like David’s on his way to charming Frankie. “Bit strange, all this, ain’t it?” he says. “All these memories gettin’ thrown up.”

“That’ll be the boy,” says Ben. “almost a chip off the old block, ain’t he?” 

“Almost. Not quite so bolshy as you though. Bit more timid.”

“Ah, he’ll get there. Once he knows what he wants in life.”

“Then god ‘elp us all!” Callum grins down at him, and his gaze alights on the hand Ben still holds in a fist. “What’s that you got in yer hand?”

Ben looks shame-faced, but slowly opens his palm to reveal the tiny carved bird Callum had given him all those years ago for Christmas. Its surface is smooth from years of handling. “I found it in that trunk of photos you dug out. I’d bin goin’ mad, thinkin’ I’d lost it. Turns out I put it away for safe-keepin’.”

He looks up at Callum with an intense gaze. “Will ya make sure it’s kept safe… after?” 

“Ben - ”

“Please? We gotta talk about these things, ain’t we?”

Callum nods wordlessly. It’s the last thing he wants to talk about.

“Keep everythin’ safe,” continues Ben. “Frankie, the memories. Don’t let it all just get forgotten.”

FRANKIE

Frankie pegs the last of the washing on the line and steps back, knuckling either side of her spine with a quiet groan. It’s getting harder, keeping on top of all the housework. Harder still, keeping the farm up together. They have workers come in over the summer months to harvest the hay, stripping the fields in no time at all with their new-fangled machinery. For a few days the air is filled with the sounds of engines whining, and then suddenly, the hay bales are stored and the farm becomes silent again, save for the sounds of the birds and the occasional bark of the pedigree poodle that lives in the renovated barn across the way. The farm dog’s long since gone, of course. Frankie had never replaced him, not thinking it necessary with Callum and Ben around to protect her in the way they protected anyone they cared about, Ben in particular like a brooding guard dog who’s quick to attack.

That hadn’t always worked in her favour, though. She remembers occasions over the last couple of decades when Ben’s anger had been directed at her. They’d fought over the sale of the barn, Ben having invested a sentimental value in the old place that Frankie couldn’t afford to indulge given the state of the farm accounts at the time. She was perfectly aware that Ben and Callum had used it as a private trysting place when they’d first declared themselves to each other, seeking out its cool, cathedral-like interior whenever they wanted a bit of time to themselves. For a few months after Callum had returned, Frankie had had to get used to the chores she allocated them taking twice as long as they should, and she soon learned not to enter the barn if she noticed shovels downed at the side of a fence they were supposedly repairing, or hedge cutters cast aside in one of the fields.

The second occasion Ben and Frankie had really locked horns had been when Ben had taken it upon himself to dream up ways of reversing the farm’s failing fortunes. He’d hit upon the idea of turning the orchard into what he called a ‘pick yer own’ site, charging visitors a fixed rate plus a fee for every pound of fruit they picked, but Frankie had demurred. This had been in the fifties, but she was still not comfortable with strangers snooping around, given that Ben and Callum were still technically illegal. Ben had insisted, however, and they’d almost fallen out for good, Ben thinking she was against the idea because it was he who’d suggested it, and Frankie thinking Ben ungrateful for not recognising that she was trying to protect them all. In the end, it was Callum who had made the peace between them, in his usual sweet, placid way, and there had existed an uneasy truce between the two of them ever since, it’s edges rounded and softened by age so that now, anyone observing them from the outside wouldn’t notice that there was any friction at all. In truth, as Callum had told her on more than one occasion, she and Ben were too alike, both too hot-headed, to ever truly get on, but they tolerated each other well enough, and over the years this had distilled down into amiable co-existence. In fact, on odd occasions in recent years, Frankie surprised herself by forgetting why she’d ever found Ben infuriating in the first place.

She picks up her empty washing basket and rounds the house to check on the hens, the only livestock they’d kept over the years since the war. The day is warm and breezy, with white clouds scudding through the sky, and she stops a while, resting a hand on the gate to the chicken coop, to listen to the birdsong in the hedgerow and the low-level fussing of the hens as they peck for grain.

A noise makes her look up to her right, just in time to see David lowering his camera. He waves it at her. “You don’t mind, do you?”

She shrugs. The young man seems to have invaded their lives in only the two short days he’s been here. She had thought to put up a fight, but he seems to have Ben’s approval, so who is she to turn him away? She suspects Ben is hoping he’ll be the flag-bearer, the one who carries the memories of Ben and Callum – and yes, perhaps even Frankie herself – forward for future generations to remember. Lord knows, there’s no one else to do it.

And so, he’d been given the freedom of the farm, able to come and go as he’d pleased, and she’d seen him earlier taking picture after picture of the place. Shots of quite unremarkable scenes – the well, the stone archway, the entrance to the farmyard.

“You take a lot of pictures, non?” she asks now.

He nods. “I’m on my third roll of film. I’ve taken some candid shots of the three of ya, too. I’ll get ‘em all developed when I get home, send copies of the best ones to you if ya like.”

She shrugs again. The place isn’t how it used to be. It’s run-down now, not at all the picturesque haven it was when she first took it on alone, enjoying her first taste of freedom despite the fact that it came at the price of her loved ones. She remembers when it was just her and the dog. They would both rise early and sniff the air, smelling the seasons changing and Frankie feeling that she was queen of her own little world. Of course, that had changed when the boys came along, although not to a great extent. She’d still ruled the roost, despite Ben’s little acts of rebellion every now and again. Callum was more compliant; more respectful. In fact, there was a time when she had thought… But no matter.

The three of them are not how they used to be, either. She can’t imagine she would want to see any photographs of them all now they’re old and wrinkled. When the boys first came to her, they were beautiful, in the way that youth always carries its own beauty. She remembers evenings picnicking down by the stream after the day’s work was done, when it felt like they all had so much promise, so much life ahead of them.

“Can I ask you some questions?” asks David.

She brings her mind back to the present. “If you must.”

He smiles at that. “You don’t like me very much, do you?” 

“I don’t know you. I don’t know what it is that you want.”

He crosses to stand next to her and scrutinises her face. She stares back, having to raise her chin to meet his eyes, refusing to be cowed by him.

“You still think I’m up to no good.” The hens start up a squabble at the presence of a stranger, and he transfers his gaze to them. Frankie carries on watching him quietly. There’s an intensity about him, a brooding quality, that she recognises from Ben. She’s never quite sure what he’s thinking.

“When I came here, I wanted to research my family tree, like I told you,” he begins. “I just thought it would be an interesting exercise, and – yes – I thought I might get an article out of it. Now, though, they’ve pulled me in, the pair of them. I thought the story was their desertion from the war, but it’s not, is it? The story is how they found each other and stayed together all this time.”

He laughs. “I found it really odd, when they first told me. It made me squirm. I mean, I’ve never had any dealin’s with… people like that. I only know what I’ve read in the papers. Sometimes I’ve written the stories meself, to be honest. Men caught in public toilets, men dressing up as women.” He looks round at her. “Back in the real world, there’s all sorts goin’ on. Political movements, people fightin’ for their rights, and here, quietly gettin’ on with their lives, they’ve got all that already. They’ve made a life together regardless of what the outside world thinks they should be allowed, an’ they’re just two normal men, ain’t they?”

“You think this is not the real world?” asks Frankie, only half-seriously.

He casts her a sideways glance. “It ain’t like any world I know. Yer cut off here, in yer own little universe.”

“And we like it that way,” says Frankie firmly.

“I don’t think it’s a bad thing,” says David quickly. He’s trying to ingratiate himself with her. Frankie guesses that, of them all, she’s the hardest nut for him to crack.

“But you think they don’t need to fight for their rights?” she continues. “Non, I have thought about this. When Ben… when we get to the stage that he needs…They will not allow Callum to sit with him as he dies. He will not be recognised as the person who has loved him all his life.” She shakes her head angrily. “What Ben and Callum do, who they are, it may be legal in this country, but it is hidden away, brushed away underneath the carpet – is that what you say? Non, that is why we have our own little world here. Ben will… the end will come at home, in his own bed, with the person who loves him the most by his side.”

David stares closely at her. “You really care for them both, don’tcha?”

She rouses herself and places the empty washing basket on the ground to be picked up later. “Come, you are unsettling the hens. Let us walk.”

They set off across the yard, David slowing his normal pace to allow for Frankie’s shorter steps, and head through the stone arch towards the orchard. Their route brings them close alongside the new boundary wall that cuts off the barn from the rest of the land. Over the wall they can hear the faint sounds of a family living their life inside. A radio, low in the background; voices; the clinking of crockery.

“We are a family,” says Frankie, in answer to David’s previous question. “An unusual one, but a family nonetheless. We fight, we fall out, but we are always there for each other.”

“Did ya never have anyone of yer own?” asks David. “Sorry!” he exclaims, immediately seeing her reaction and realising how that must have sounded. “I mean, was there never a time when you thought you’d settle down with someone? Did you not want kids?”

“I hoped, once or twice in my life,” says Frankie. “When I was seventeen I courted with a boy from the next farm, but when the war came…” She makes a throwaway gesture. “My boy, my father, my brother… all lost. It is hard not to be bitter, sometimes, but what good would it do?”

She opens the gate to the orchard and they enter, wandering along the aisles between the trees, most of them in blossom at this time of year. It feels like walking through a sweet-smelling snow drift. “My mother died when I was small, so it felt like I would be forever alone. And also, the longer I was alone, the more independent I became, until I was probably not an interesting prospect for any man who might be available. But then the boys came along, and I was alone no longer.”

“But you said once or twice,” says David. “Who else? After the boy from the farm?”

She fixes her gaze on the ground and he watches her carefully. Something in the way she carries herself so rigidly must bring him to a realisation, and she curses herself for not hiding it better.

“Which?” he asks. He casts back over their interactions in his mind’s eye. “Callum?” 

She meets his gaze then, defiant. “You ask a lot of questions, do you not?”

“Sorry,” he says, only now appearing to realise that he’s prying into things that don’t concern him. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

They walk on a few steps, and then she sighs. “No matter. It was a long time ago. I am, how do you young people say? ‘Cool and groovy’.” She surprises him with a quick smile, then turns her gaze back to the ground again. “And as for children, well, the more I saw of this world, the less I wanted to bring a child into it.”

She stops to pick up a fallen bundle of twigs and throws them to one side underneath a pear tree, its trunk knarled and scarred with age.

“What did you make of them, when they first arrived?” asks David as they resume walking.

“Callum was a sweet man, very open and friendly. Ben was more difficult to understand, more closed off, but so protective of Callum. Very soon I thought they were idiots,” she says, surprising him again. She throws him another quick smile. “Perhaps not at the beginning, but soon.” She takes a deep breath and reaches up a hand to run it over a low-hanging branch, stroking her fingers through the blossom. “They had been through a momentous event. Callum was very unwell. Ben was very defensive. Both of them were suffering from what they had been through. I think even then I knew there was something between them. Something more, certainly from Ben, at least.”

She pulls a blossom from the branch and raises it to her nose, breathing in the subtle aroma. “Ben seemed jealous, at first.”

“Of you?” asks David.

“Of course. We struggled to get along. Nothing was said, but we could not find a balance between us. Not like I did with Callum. As he got better we developed a good friendship. He is easy to like, non?”

David nods his agreement.

“Back then, he was timid. Scared. I began to notice something though. Have you noticed it?” She looks up at him and he shakes his head, at a loss.  
“Every time Callum comes into a room, he will brush his hand over the back of Ben’s neck. A soothing gesture, for them both, I think.”

“Ah, yeah I have noticed, now you mention it.”

“Yes, he started to do that very early on. Before even they realised what they meant to each other. Almost as if their subconscious had decided what they were unaware of.” Frankie shrugs. “It was at that point that I realised I stood no chance. I was not who he wanted.”

“Did you ever speak to them about it?”

“Of course not! We did not speak of such things in those days. I just sat in the parlour in the evenings, watching them watching each other without either one realising, both of them looking full of worry as if they did not want this thing that was developing between them. No, they would have been dismayed if I had spoken of it.”

Frankie takes him by the elbow to steer him into the next aisle between the rows of apple trees. “Actually, that is a lie. I talked to Ben once, much later. I knew for sure then that he was in love with Callum, but still he did not. Or did not want to acknowledge it. No,” she continues, smiling fondly at the memory. “He was horrified. Horrified and embarrassed. Silly man.”

“Silly?” echoes David.

“For denying something so important. You cannot deny who you love, just as you cannot manufacture love if it is not there.”

David gasps, his step faltering, and she half-turns to him, thinking he’s in pain, but he wears an expression of surprise that he soon conceals, smiling faintly at her and continuing on.

“I thought they were idiots,” continues Frankie, walking on beside him, “because they were dancing around each other, both too scared to admit what it was that they felt, and yet it was clear for all to see. Clear to me, anyway.”

“But there’s a lot of stigma about it,” says David. “People like that, they’re a laughing stock in my country.”

She glares at him. “Your country itself is a laughing stock, non?” He frowns, taken aback at her vehemence.

“I have no patience with a country that tries to criminalise somebody for who they love. Life is hard enough without that nonsense.”

David is silent for a few steps, then he clears his throat. “I, uh, I’ve not always bin kind about people like that. Makin’ jokes about ‘em with me mates, reportin’ on court cases and the like. I think maybe I’m part of the problem.” He looks round at Frankie. “I feel bad about it, I really do. Not any more though. I hope I’ll stick up for ‘em in the future, and I think I know what I can do to make amends.”

She raises her eyebrows, but he lapses into silence again. Once again his brooding expression reminds her of Ben.

“And you?” she asks eventually. “I cannot allow you to ask all the questions. Tell me about yourself.”

He chuckles, suddenly bashful. “Nothin’ to tell.” 

“You have a girl, non?”

“Hmm. For now.”

She looks at him, curious, but he doesn’t expand on his answer. She sees that he’s a man of very few words, when he wants to be, and soon she turns the conversation to another subject, stretching her arms to indicate how far the farm extends beyond the orchard, explaining how much land has been sold off to keep them safe and secure there.

Later that day, when they’re all sitting around the fire in the parlour and the spring evening is softening with fading light, she watches him from the corner of her eye and hopes for a future that’s free of compromise for him. A better future. Perhaps a future he can be instrumental in building.

BEN

1919

“Come ON, Callum, hurry up.” Ben is well aware that he’s whining, but he just can’t find it in himself to care by this point. Self-respect is an over-rated character trait in these situations.

In front of him, Callum stuffs straw into a hessian sack, taking care to make sure it gets into every corner, testing its softness before he shoves in the next handful. His every action is deliberate and methodical. “I don’t know why we ever emptied these before,” he says. He looks round at Ben with mock exasperation. “You could help, ya know.”

“I can’t, I’m too far gone,” admits Ben.

Callum casts a look down at the front of his trousers and raises an eyebrow. “I can see that.”

“Oh for goodness’ sake!” exclaims Ben, partly to spare himself embarrassment. “Give it ‘ere.” He grabs the sack from Callum, empties it of all the straw Callum had so painstakingly stuffed into it, and then lays it down on top of one of the hay bales. “Get us a couple more,” he orders, with an outstretched hand to indicate the pile of sacks on the ground floor of the barn.

“I spent ages on that!” protests Callum, nevertheless turning to do as he’s told.

“I know, and that was the problem,” says Ben. “We need a quick solution in the current circumstances.”

He can hear Callum chuckling to himself as he descends the ladder and crosses the floor of the barn to fetch more sacks. He shifts restlessly from foot to foot as he waits for him to return.  
Mission accomplished, Callum climbs back up the ladder and lays the sacks on the lowest pile of hay bales, hidden from the rest of the barn by a higher row just in front of it. “We can’t be long,” he says. “Frankie’ll be wondering why the hedge ain’t been finished in the bottom field.”

He lies back on their makeshift bed and idly rubs himself. Since he and Ben declared themselves to each other he’s become wanton when the pair of them are alone together. His relaxed approach to what they do with each other puts Ben to shame sometimes, still haunted as he is by thought of his father’s undoubted disapproval and disgust.

Ben kicks off his (Frankie’s brother’s) work boots and approaches the bed, unbuttoning his shirt. “We’ve got a while yet. She’s occupied with cleaning the spare rooms all mornin’. And besides which, we’re due a meal break.”

“Not at ten o’clock in the mornin’, we’re not,” points out Callum. 

“Detail,” comments Ben, sitting beside him.

“Ah, ah!” exclaims Callum, pushing him away. “Stand up.”

Ben does as he’s told, looking unsure. “What?”

“Want to watch,” says Callum. “Undress yerself for me.”

His words provide Ben with an extra jolt of arousal. “What? Everythin’?” he asks. Callum nods, unfastening his own trousers and slipping a hand inside.  
“But I can’t!” protests Ben. “What if Frankie comes in ‘ere?”

“You said yerself she’s occupied all mornin’,” says Callum. “And besides which, she knows not to come lookin’ for us if we go missin’. She learned that lesson after the last time.”

Ben shakes his head, the memory still causing his toes to curl up in embarrassment. He throws a pleading look at Callum, but the older man just smiles and narrows his eyes, waiting for the floor show. In truth, Ben loves it just as much as he does. He just doesn’t love what it means about him, that he so willingly flaunts himself for the pleasure of another man.

In the heat of the moment, though, he can normally cast those misgivings aside. It’s only later, when they’re spent and panting in each other’s arms, that the doubt and the shame come roiling back in. Now, he finishes unbuttoning his shirt and pulls it from his shoulders, then starts on his trousers, maintaining defiant eye contact with Callum all the while.

“My beautiful boy,” whispers Callum.

Ben dips his head, bashful. “Ain’t beautiful.”

“Are. C’mere, I can’t wait no longer,” commands Callum, opening his arms to him.

“Ya used to be so shy, when I first met ya,” comments Ben, clambering into his lap. “Dunno what happened.”

“An’ you used to be so bolshy when I first met ya,” says Callum. “There’s a big softy underneath all that bravado, ain’t there?”

“Dunno what yer talkin’ about,” says Ben, before capturing his lips in a kiss. He pulls back again to add, “I do know that ya looked a right stunner in yer uniform”, then kisses Callum again. He fumbles with the buttons on Callum’s shirt as he does so, and commences planting a trail of kisses over his chest.

1968

The mattress beside Ben dips as Callum sits up and begins the process of swinging his legs over the side before standing up, a much slower process than it used to be in his youth. Ben lies for another few seconds with his eyes closed, savouring the last of his dream and then taking his usual morning inventory of his body. The ache in his chest is getting much worse, and he’s becoming increasingly breathless. He hides the extent of the symptoms from the others though, there’s no point in them fussing.

He opens his eyes to the pink light of dawn, and reaches out a hand to stroke his fingers down Callum’s pajama’d back. “Gettin’ up so soon?” he asks.

Callum murmurs something without looking round.

“Mm?” asks Ben.

At that, Callum does turn round so that Ben can see his lips. “Just visitin’ the bathroom.” 

“Come back after?” asks Ben.

Callum nods, linking fingers with him momentarily, before planting his feet on the floor and shuffling over to pick his dressing gown from the back of the door. He smiles at Ben as he shrugs it on and disappears through the door. 

Ben is dreaming of their younger selves increasingly these days. He doesn’t know if it’s a result of having David stay with them, with all the memories he’s persuaded them to dredge up, or if it’s a natural part of dying. Revisiting the parts of your life that brought you happiness. He’s thankful he has some happy memories. If it weren’t for meeting Callum, his life would have comprised of misery, denigration and mindless slog with his father, followed by certain death on the battlefield. As it is, his years have been filled with love and laughter and sunny summer evenings. He couldn’t have wished for better.

“The boy’s last day with us today,” he says as Callum re-enters the room.

“It is,” says Callum, taking off his dressing gown again and hanging it meticulously on the back of the door. He crosses to begin the slow process of getting back into bed, pulling back the covers with a shaking hand and sitting on the side before raising one leg onto the mattress and then the other in a careful reversal of his actions earlier. “You’ll miss him, won’tcha?”

“I will. He brought a little bit of me youth back to me,” says Ben.

Settled back in bed, Callum reaches out and takes his hand. “You was a beautiful boy, ya know. I couldn’ta bin happier with anyone else.”

Ben rolls over and buries his face in Callum’s shoulder. “Yer talkin’ like I’m already dead.” 

Callum sighs. “I wish ya wouldn’t keep sayin’ them things.”

“We’ve gotta face facts, Callum.” Ben raises his head to look directly into Callum’s eyes. “YOU’VE gotta face facts.” He rolls onto his back and stares at the crack in the ceiling that’s been there for as long as he remembers. Many’s the time he’s traced its winding journey from the corner nearest the bed into the middle of the room while his body moves in concert with Callum’s on the mattress below. “I might be goin’ on before ya,” he continues, “but I’ll wait. I’ll watch over ya, and I’ll be waitin’, when yer ready to join me.”

“I won’t be far behind ya,” says Callum. He pulls their linked fingers up to his mouth and plants a soft kiss on Ben’s knuckles. “I won’t be far behind. It won’t be much of a life fer me if you ain’t in it.”

Ben smiles at him, remembering once again that shy, timid Private who marched ahead of him all the way to Ypres. “You know what I’d like to do today?” he asks eventually.

Callum shakes his head.

“I wanna go down to the stream, have a picnic there like we used to. What’s the weather lookin’ like?”

“You sure you can walk that far?” asks Callum. “It’s s’posed to be sunny today, might be warm enough.”

“Right,” says Ben. “That’s what we’ll do then.”

“We’re makin’ sure we get our money’s worth out of ya before ya leave,” calls Ben, delighting in the sight of David struggling ahead of him under the weight of three camp chairs, a picnic basket, his camera and a rug. Ben himself is leaning heavily on Callum’s arm as they make their way out of the farmyard and into the field that runs past the bottom boundary of the barn’s garden.

Frankie is bringing up the rear. “I could take something from you,” she calls to David, “if my way was not obstructed by a slow-moving old man.”

“Oi!” calls Ben. “Bit of politeness never did anyone any ‘arm.” 

David smiles round at them all. “It’s fine. I’m OK.”

Ben’s in his element, ringmaster of the entire circus, and Callum grins at his delight. 

They’ve been blessed with a warm sunny day, the sky is blue, hardly blemished at all by clouds and the ground is dry from over a week with no rain. The stream is not as wide as it used to be. It runs slower, too, but if he closes his eyes, Ben can make believe it’s still the same as when they swam in it all those years ago. The ground beneath his feet is uneven, and he treads carefully, holding on tight to Callum’s arm. His breath comes in wheezing gasps, and he’s sure they must have noticed that it’s getting harder for him to breathe. He stops for a second or two, winded, and ignores Callum’s concerned glance.

“’S hot, innit?” he asks, making a point of wiping his forehead with the back of his hand.

“Not that hot,” says Callum, in a voice that indicates he knows exactly what Ben’s doing. “We’ll just cross the next field and then we’ll stop by the oak tree. That was the spot ya always liked, weren’t it?”

“Yeah,” says Ben, remembering that it was the spot at which he’d first declared himself to Callum, only to be met with fear and disgust on the older man’s part. No matter. Everything resolved itself in the end. Better than he could ever have imagined.

They set off again, and Frankie strides past the two men to take some of the burden from David. “Show off!” comments Ben as she overtakes them.

They set up the camp chairs facing the stream, and David sprawls on the rug at their feet. “I’m gonna miss this,” he says, head thrown back and eyes closed against the sun.

“And we’ll miss ya too,” says Ben. “Not Frankie. She won’t miss ya. She don’t like anyone invadin’ her privacy.”

He winks at Frankie to let her know he’s joking, and she rolls her eyes at him. “I shall be sorry to see you leave,” she says very formally to David. “And I hope you will keep in touch with us.”

“Of course!” David opens his eyes to gaze up at the three of them, all in a row in their chairs. “I think my stay here’s changed me, ya know.” He looks a little awkward saying it. “I’ve learned a few things.”

“Yeah?” asks Callum. “Like what?”

David shrugs. “To be more accepting. To go after what I want in me life.” He turns to Frankie. “You said somethin’, when we chatted. You said you can’t manufacture love if it’s not there.”

Frankie crosses her ankles demurely. “I say a lot of silly things.”

“No! It made sense. It was like one of them lightbulb moments. What was it you said, Callum? A thought that doesn’t come from your brain, but from your heart, all fully formed? Well, that’s what I had.” Conviction makes him fidget excitedly. “I’m with the wrong girl. We don’t make each other happy, and that’s what I want more than anything. A girl who can make me as happy as I make her.”

Ben nods his head slowly. “Sounds like yer gonna make a few changes then, when ya get back to old Blighty.” He pauses for a second, looking at David through narrowed eyes. “I’m a bit put out that you ain’t taken any wisdom from me though.”

“But I have!” exclaims David. “Not from anything you’ve said - ” 

“That’s because he never says anything sensible,” comments Frankie.

“From how you’ve lived yer life,” continues David throwing a smile at her. “You’ve never compromised, and you’ve lived life to the full. You’ve been your true self, and that’s really hard to do in this world.”

Callum smiles round at Ben a little sadly. Ben knows what’s in his mind without him having to say anything. David’s words sound like a eulogy. He reaches out and clutches his hand, giving it a reassuring shake. In that moment, David raises his camera and takes another shot of the three of them.

“I shall not miss that,” says Frankie drily. “Having a camera capturing my every movement.”

They dine on fresh bread and cheese, with a slice of Frankie’s apple cake for afters, and Ben thinks that no food has ever tasted better. Afterwards, while David wanders off across the field and Frankie gathers up the picnic things, he leans back in his chair and turns his face to the sun, savouring its warmth on his old skin and watching the way it illuminates the tree they’re sitting under, turning some leaves translucent and causing others to shimmer. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the tiny carved bird that Callum had made for him, and smooths his fingers over it as across the stream a blackbird sings, full of the joys of spring.

If he closes his eyes he can almost believe he’s back at that other stretch of the stream all those decades ago, hearing Callum yelp at the coldness of the water as he wades into it, watching him turn and call back to Ben to throw him his clothes so he can wash them. He closes his eyes and a line of poetry lodges in his mind and repeats itself, over and over.

'Do not go gentle into that good night.'

He reaches out to take Callum’s hand, but then feels him pull away. Opening his eyes again, he sees that Callum has stood up and is moving his chair closer to Ben’s. He sits back down again and takes Ben’s hand once more, and Ben leans to rest his head on his shoulder.

Somewhere behind them, David’s camera shutter clicks.

DAVID AND BEN AND CALLUM AND FRANKIE

September 1969

“That’s the last of the boxes then, Davy-boy,” says David’s father as he wipes his forehead. It’s early autumn, but still warm, always milder in London than it is anywhere else. His voice is almost drowned out by the sound of the traffic filtering through the open door. “We’d better get a shifty on, that van’s on a double yella.”

“I haven’t finished cleanin’ the kitchen yet,” says his mother, advancing on the taps with a cloth.

“Ma, honestly, it looks fine,” says David, as his father rolls his eyes at him and smiles conspiratorially. “It was in a worse state when we moved in.”

“Well, I don’t know,” grumbles his mother, hovering indecisively. “You heard from Tracey, by the way?”

“Why would I have heard from Tracey? She’s been seein’ someone else for the last six months. She ain’t bothered about what I’m doin’.”

“It’s sad, that’s all. The pair of ya were so excited when ya moved in here, even if yer dad and me did think it was a hovel. Yer first place together.”

“Yeah, an’ our last,” says David, trying to waft her towards the front door. “Now, I’m gonna drop off the keys and pick up the keys to the new place on the way, so I’ll get there about half an hour later than you. Just wait for me in the car park at the back and I’ll be there soon as I can.”

He takes a last look around the place to check he’s not left anything behind, and then picks up his bag. He’d expected to feel sentimental, but in truth, now that his belongings and what little furniture he has are gone, it’s just a box he lived in for a while. No great love affair took place within these four walls, no fantastic inventions were developed, no compelling works of literature created. Just four walls.

He pulls the door to just as the postman leaps up the steps to the front door. “Movin’ out?” he asks. 

“I am,” says David.

“Just in time then,” says the postman, pressing a pile of correspondence into his hand. “Would hate for ya to have missed the promotional leaflet for KJP’s carpets down the road.” He grins, and winks at David, and then takes the stairs up to the top flat two at a time.

David shoves the handful of post into his bag and heads out to pick up his car from the next road, waving at his parents in the van as he passes.

“This is a great little investment,” comments David’s dad as he wanders around the living room in the new place, peering out of the window to check the view of the park across the road.

“I thought it was your son’s new home,” says David. “Am I gonna have to move out if you suddenly decide you’ll get a better deal on letting it?”

“Stop bein’ so cheeky,” his mother calls through from the kitchen, where she’s already set about shining up the draining board and the taps. “Yer getting’ ever so cheeky these days. Far too big for yer boots.”

“’S now we’ve spent all our money on ‘im, ain’t it?” asks his dad. “No need for ‘im to be respectful any more. He’s sorted.”

“Don’t be daft,” says David. “I’m very grateful that you’ve bought me a flat.” In truth, it makes him feel a bit pampered, like Tracey had been, but he keeps those thoughts to himself. “An’ I know you ain’t spent ALL yer money on me cos I know how much grandad Ian left you. Let’s get all the stuff in from the van, shall we?”

“I’ll make a cuppa tea once yer finished,” calls his mum.

It’s only when they’re sipping tea, perched on whatever furniture they can find a space on in the chaos of the living room where everything has been dumped for David to sort out, that he remembers the letters in his bag. He retrieves the bag from the kitchen counter and pulls them out. Fliers, promotional leaflets he may as well have dumped in the bin at the old flat, and one handwritten envelope, his address meticulously printed in blue ink on the front with a Belgian postmark. He smiles in pleasure. Since he stayed with Ben, Callum and Frankie, they’ve exchanged letters every couple of months and cards at Christmas. He hopes to be able to visit them again soon.

“’S from the Belgians,” he announces to his parents, ignoring the look that passes between them. Ben, Frankie and Callum take it in turns to write the actual letters, but the news they contain is usually from all of them. David often imagines them sitting in the parlour in the evening, chipping in ideas about what to include, and between them, they’ve provided him with a live update of events at the farm that’s the next best thing to being there. Over the year since he was there he’s heard about the family moving out of the barn and a new family moving in; a wasp’s nest in the henhouse, the new recipe Frankie had found for apple cake and a whole host of seemingly trivial things that somehow make him ache with longing to be back there again.  
This time, the letter’s written by Frankie.

'Zillebeke, 31st August 1969

My dear David, I hope that you are well and that the house move you told us about has gone smoothly. I am sorry to write that Ben died yesterday. It was all very peaceful. As you know, he had a nurse coming in to look after him towards the end, but finally, it was just me and Callum at his bedside, which is as it should have been. I am pleased to tell you that he was lucid almost until the end. His last words were ‘Goodnight Private Highway’ as he held Callum’s hand. He was able to recognise him and smiled, and then he slipped into a coma and was gone later that day. The window was open and the birds were singing outside, and somehow it seems wrong that they did not stop their song for him, but that is not nature’s way of course. The house is very quiet without him. Callum is distraught, as you would imagine.

The funeral is to take place next Wednesday, the 7th, in the little church in the next hamlet. I don’t know if you would be able to come for it, but you would be very welcome if you were able. I will write again when things are more normal, but in the meantime, believe me very much, 

Your friend Francesca.'

“…ain’t that right, Davy?”

David stares, unseeing, at his father and only then realises both of them have been continuing a conversation while he read his letter.

“You alright?” asks his mother.

“Uh, no, don’t think so,” says David. He clears his throat. “Ben died.” 

“Oh,” says his mother. “Oh well.” She exchanges a look with his father. 

“Oh well?” asks David, askance. “What does that mean?”

“Davy,” says his father in a warning tone. 

“No! What does that mean?”

His mother shifts awkwardly. “I just mean, he couldn’t have had a very happy life, could he? Being… like that. It’s probably a happy release.”

David stares at her uncomprehendingly. An image floats into his mind of Ben, cracking jokes at Frankie’s expense with a wide smile on his face. He remembers the feeling he’d had that Ben had lived a true, authentic life, and can’t imagine that anyone could have been happier.

“He was more happy than you’ll ever know,” he says, his voice cracking a little.

“I just feel sorry for people like that,” says his father. “No family to speak of, livin’ on the margins of society. And the fact that he deserted, says it all, don’t it?”

“P’raps society’s not all it’s cracked up to be,” says David, trying to contain his anger.

“Not this again,” sighs his father. “Where would we be if there weren’t society; families; men and women livin’ as they should?”

“I’m beginnin’ to wonder about you,” says his mother. “Is there somethin’ yer not tellin’ us, David?”

David frowns at her. “Like what?”

“Well, you an’ Tracey split up not long after you come back from Belgium, and you seem to idolise this great uncle of yours. Look at the way yer face lit up when you realised you had a letter.”

“Don’t be silly,” says David. “You think I’m gay?”

“Oi! Don’t talk to yer mother like that, David.”

“Homosexual,” says his mother. “That’s what they call it. Perverted, I call it.”

“Unfortunate,” adds his father. “They might have some protection in law these days, but it don’t mean it’s right. ‘S against nature, ain’t it? It’ll never be right. People like that are to be pitied, I s’pose.”

“OK, I think I need to get on and sort out this flat,” says David, standing up abruptly. “Thanks for helping with the move.”

“Don’t be silly David, we’ll stop and help. P’raps we can get fish and chips when we’re a bit more sorted.” His mother stands up too and begins sorting through one of the boxes nearest to her.

“No! Please, just go. I wanna be on my own to do this.” 

“Don’t be so melodramatic, Davy,” says his father.

“Someone I was very fond of has just died, but you don’t recognise the importance of that, so I’m asking you nicely to leave me alone. Please.”

His parents glance uncertainly at each other, but his father heads for the door and, after a few seconds, so does his mother.

“Thank you,” says David. “I’m not ungrateful, I’m just a bit upset. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Right, well...” says his mother, sounding bemused. “We’ll give you yer space then. That’s what the young people say, isn’t it?” She takes a couple of steps towards the door, but then returns to take him by the chin and look into his eyes. “If you are ‘like that’, Davy, I don’t want to know. You hear me? You keep it to yerself.”

Her eyes are hard. He’s never seen her like that before.

“I’m not,” he says, pulling away from her. He crosses his arms and watches, defiant, until they’ve disappeared through the door and he hears the outer door slam behind them. He feels tears prickling at the back of his eyelids, and wipes them away roughly. So, Ben has gone. Somehow, stupidly, David realises he’d assumed the old man would just go on forever.

It’s Monday today. The funeral’s on Wednesday. David wonders if he could get to Zillebeke in time. He considers the options in his mind and then runs down to the phone box on the corner of the street. He flicks through the phone book that’s attached to the kiosk by a chain and, not finding the number he wants, calls the operator for the number for a ferry company. Then he cradles the receiver between his neck and his shoulder as he waits for the call to be connected, drumming his fingers on the stand, and pushing his ten pence coin into the slot as someone picks up. The call connects with a clunk. “Hello? Yes, I’d like to enquire about ferry crossings to Dunkirk for tomorrow.”

There’s a slight chill in the air as he mounts his bike and pedals off towards the road. The air is salty and the seagulls wheel in the sky above him, and his mind is blasted with memories of the first time he’d taken this trip. Frankie and Callum don’t know to expect him, so he hopes they won’t mind if he just turns up. He’s got about fifty miles to cycle, so it will be near-dusk when he gets there. He’s already feeling tired. It had been an early start, but there’s no way he could have lived with himself if he hadn’t come.

It occurs to him when he’s cycled about thirty miles that this may have been the route Callum took on that day he decided he was going home, back to England. He wonders how far he got before he realised he was leaving a piece of himself back in Zillebeke. He cycles between hedgerows laden with almost-ripe blackberries, and watches swallows swooping and dancing in the sky ahead of him in the last days before they travel south for the winter.

The sun is low in the sky as he wheels the bike into the old farmyard that’s become so familiar to him even in the short space of time he was there before. A light is on in the downstairs window, and the air smells sweet with wild honeysuckle from the lane outside.

As he crosses to prop the bike up against the wall, the door opens and Frankie steps outside into the dusk. She starts when she sees him, and then peers closer and a wide smile spreads across her face. “Oh! He will be so pleased you came.”

“Hi Frankie.” David relieves himself of the bike and turns to hug her. She feels tiny, like a delicate little bird in his arms. “I’m so sorry to hear about Ben.”

“Well,” she steps back and shrugs. “Not unexpected, but still…” 

“How’s Callum?”

“Quiet. Sad. As you would expect.” She takes him by the hand and leads him into the house. “Come, I will tell him you are here. I was just going to shut the hens in for the night, but that can wait. I know he will be pleased to see you.”

He finds it hard to believe he’s only been in that house three weeks out of his entire life. As he steps through the door, the smell of the coal fire in the parlour and the sight of the coat rack, still with the three sets of wellington boots underneath, takes him back immediately to his time there last summer. It feels like he’s come home.

Frankie opens the door to the parlour and peers round it. “There is someone to see you.”

From within, David hears Callum protesting in a subdued voice. “Nah, really Frankie, I don’t wanna see no one right now. Tell ‘em to come back another time.”

“We have had some neighbours, come to give their condolences,” Frankie explains, turning back to David. Her head disappears round the door again. “I think you will want to see this person.”

She steps back and gestures to David to enter the room, and he steps inside the door cautiously, not sure of the reception he’s likely to receive. Callum is sitting in what used to be Ben’s armchair, staring into the fireplace. He looks up distractedly and then his eyes clear and a faint smile passes across his face. He stands up. “Well I never!” He crosses to envelop David in his arms, and lets out a sob, which he quickly conceals by clearing his throat.

“I’m so sorry, Callum,” says David as they part. “I had to come when I heard.” 

“An’ I’m glad ya did,” says Callum, wiping his eyes. “He’ll be so pleased.”

They sit opposite each other, David in Callum’s armchair and Callum still in Ben’s, and David realises that Frankie has not joined them.

“He was still crackin’ jokes almost up to the end,” says Callum. “Still entertainin’ us all.” 

David grins. “I can’t imagine him any other way.”

“Nah.” Callum stares into the flames, with a faint smile on his face. “’S how he was when I first met him.” He looks round at David and grimaces. “Tell ya the truth, I was a bit scared of him when I first knew ‘im.”

“Scared?”

Callum nods. “He was so quick-witted, always takin’ the mick, always findin’ someone to make fun of, an’ I was a shy lad in them days, just wanted to blend into the background. He weren’t nasty with it, but I just hated bein’ the centre of attention.”

“But if there was one person who could rein him in, it was you,” says David. He sees that Callum’s pleased with his observation.

“Yep, I s’pose so, once I got to know what made ‘im tick. And actually, there come a time quite early on when I kind of liked bein’ noticed by ‘im.” He chuckles. “I think by the time we got to Ypres I started to get a bit jealous if it weren’t me he was aimin’ his jokes at.”

He lapses into silence. His left hand is closed into a fist on the arm of the chair. The right shakes slightly as he rubs it back and forth on the fabric. “I ‘ad to sit over ‘ere,” he continues with an uneasy look at David. “I couldn’t sit where you are an’ look at his empty chair. Just couldn’t.”

He clutches his hands together and David sees that he’s toying with the carved bird, passing it from hand to hand and smoothing it between his fingers.

“He had a long, happy life,” says David, realising as he says it that it sounds like a mere platitude. “I know they always say that when someone… but it was really true about him. He loved ya, and he was happy. I could see that straight away.”

A wry smile passes over Callum’s face. “D’you know we ain’t never ever said them words to each other? ‘I love you’. Never felt the need, I ‘spose, and besides which, it weren’t somethin’ ya bandied about in them days. Not like the kids these days, always flingin’ it around left, right and centre. No, we never said it, but it didn’t make it any less true. We both knew we was loved.”

“I can only hope I find someone who’ll love me as much as he loved you,” says David.

“Ah, yer young,” says Callum. “Someone’ll come along. Yer only the age Ben was when - ” He trails off, and tears come into his eyes. He raises a shaking hand to his mouth and takes deep breaths, trying to compose himself. David watches with a heavy heart.

Eventually, Callum clears his throat. “D’ya know what? I think I’d like some time on me own for now. I hope ya don’t think that’s rude. Why don’tcha go and find Frankie, see if she can put some food together for ya? You must be hungry, travellin’ all that way.”

David stands but hesitates. He wants to comfort the older man in some way, but he feels awkward and unsure. Instead, he settles for an “I’m sorry,” as he makes for the door, knowing that it’s inadequate, but also knowing that Callum probably won’t even notice, miles away as he is.

He finds Frankie in the kitchen, staring out of the window. She starts as he comes into the room, and he sees that she’s been crying. She scrubs roughly at her cheeks and forces a smile. “I have set your bed to air. It may be a little damp. I did not know if you would come.”

“It’ll be fine,” says David. “I should’ve let you know, but I only got yer letter yesterday.” 

“No matter. You are here. Some food?”

“I don’t wanna put you to any trouble - ”

“No trouble.” She waves away his protestation and turns to rummage in the pantry, then starts putting together a plate of bread and cold meats. “It is so quiet here,” she says as she bustles around the kitchen. “So quiet. He was such an infuriating man, but I miss him. More than I ever thought I would.”

She comes to a stop with her hand on the back of a chair, and there are tears in her eyes again.

“You welcomed him into your house, made a home for him. Of course you’re gonna miss him,” says David, again feeling that anything he can say, with his lack of years and experience, can only be inadequate. “I know how much it must have meant to him, finding sanctuary here.” He huffs a quick laugh. “To be honest, I was only here that very short time last year, but I kind of feel like I’ve come home today. There’s somethin’ about this place.”

She brightens at his words. “There is! It is a very special place. I am glad you think so.”

The next day dawns chilly and bright. Looking out from his bedroom window, David can see that the leaves in the trees are starting to turn yellow and red and orange. The blackbird still sings from the hedgerow and the low sun casts shadows across the yard. He can hear the others moving around, getting ready, and he dresses quickly in the white shirt and black trousers he’d brought from home, most of the creases from being in his rucksack having fallen out overnight when he hung them on the front of the wardrobe. He wrestles with his black tie, wanting to get the knot just right, and then descends the stairs to the kitchen with a deep breath and a slow step.

Callum and Frankie are sitting at the table when he gets there, both cradling cups of coffee in silence. They smile sadly up at him as he joins them.

“He’s got a beautiful day,” comments Callum before words fail him and he stares back down at his coffee.

When the funeral cortege arrives in the yard an hour later, Callum and Frankie exchange a look of dread. They stand, adjusting their clothes, and Callum smooths a hand over his carefully brylcreemed hair. David follows them from the house, noting how Callum seems even more stooped than when he’d met him a year ago. He cuts a forlorn figure in his old-fashioned black suit.

When they’re settled in the car behind the hearse, the cortege sets off, taking a right out of the farmyard and moving in slow procession along the road in the direction that David has yet to take. Once over the bridge that crosses the stream, they pass a couple of farm labourers walking in the opposite direction, and see them wait, heads bowed, as the procession passes them. Here and there are tiny cottages flanking the road and, between, the rolling fields stretch as far as the eye can see. David can see that one of them is being ploughed, turning from green to brown in pleasingly straight lines. He tries to imagine how the landscape would have looked at the time of the fighting, scarred by craters and churned into mud. It’s almost impossible to believe that something so momentously destructive happened there less than a century ago.

No words are spoken in the car. Callum is once again smoothing the carved bird between his palms, and Frankie stares straight ahead, her lips tight and her back ramrod straight. David scrunches up his eyes and recalls to mind the first image he’d ever seen of his great uncle, defiant and handsome in his soldier’s uniform.

The stone-built church they arrive at six or seven miles further along the road is pretty, standing back from the road in a setting that couldn’t be more perfect, surrounded by oak and ash trees that are filled with birdsong, and bounded by fields that rise up to a wooded hill behind, on which David can see a stream glinting.

Two or three people from the neighbouring farms are already waiting outside the church in the bright autumnal light, and they nod their heads respectfully at Frankie and Callum as they step out of the car.

David moves to stand beside Callum as the pall bearers take the coffin out of the hearse, and the older man grips his arm tightly. As they begin the procession into the church behind the coffin, Frankie slips her hand through his other arm, and they walk in together, the others following at a polite distance behind. David stares up at the stained-glass windows depicting farming scenes above the altar, and fixes the memory of that defiant, handsome young soldier in his mind as the pastor begins his welcome.

“Ben saved me,” begins Callum, gripping hard onto the lectern as he delivers the eulogy, the creased piece of paper he reads from shaking in one hand. “He saved me when I was wounded on the battlefield, but he also saved me metaphorically. I first knew him as a sarcastic, swaggering private in the first world war. I think the first words he ever said to me were, “How’s it lookin’ up there, private?” He was a lot shorter than me, ya see.” Callum looks up and smiles at the tiny congregation. “He was shorter and younger than me, but he more than made up for that in sheer force of personality. From the moment he decided to direct his sarcasm at me, I knew I’d have a hard job shakin’ him off. Once Ben set his mind to somethin’, that was it.”

Callum glances up again, his eyes full of tears. Beside David, Frankie raises a handkerchief to her eyes.

“He set his mind to makin’ a friend of me, an’ there came a time when I realised I didn’t ever wanna shake ‘im off. To the extent that we spent the next fifty one years together, and that’s why he saved me. Ya see…”

Callum falters, and David watches as his face crumples and his entire body begins to shake. “I’m sorry,” mumbles Callum. He raises a hand to wipe his face, but then grips the lectern even tighter and bows his head, trying to compose himself.

There is a long silence, in which David can hear feet shuffling and muffled whispering in the pews behind him. Frankie lays a hand on his arm, and he looks round to see her gazing at him imploringly. He nods, and gets to his feet.

Callum throws him a grateful glance as he joins him at the lectern and takes the piece of paper from his hand, sliding an arm around his waist as he gazes out over the congregation, small as it is.  
He feels Callum lean into his embrace.

“You see,” he commences, following the words written on the paper in Callum’s hand. “Ben taught me to live my life according to my own terms. To ignore accepted wisdoms, and to forge my own path in life. To stand up for what I believe in and for the people I love, and that’s something for which I will be forever grateful. He was a true force of nature, and he taught me what love is.  
I’ll never forget him, my fearless friend.”

Outside, David watches the swallows swooping in the bright air as the coffin is lowered into the ground in a quiet corner of the graveyard underneath an ancient oak tree, and keeps the image of that young soldier in his mind. There are more ways to fight than with guns and artillery. More ways to forge the life that you want to live. As the pastor commits Ben’s body to the ground, he makes up his mind that he will live as fearlessly as Ben did, and he knows what he needs to do first of all. He gazes round at Callum and at Frankie, at these two brave, unorthodox souls. He glances down at the lilies that have been placed at the head of the grave and reads the card, printed in capitals in Callum’s unsteady hand. 

"Goodnight my beautiful boy. Sleep tight until we meet again. C x."

He nods his head to himself. He knows what he needs to do.

Back in London two days later, David sets about imposing some order on the flat that’s still piled high with boxes and furniture, abandoned with his decision to travel to Zillebeke. When the place is looking a bit more inhabitable he sets up his desk in the window of the living room, with the view of the park across the road, and places his typewriter upon it. Then he digs around in the boxes until he finds the wallets of photographs he’d taken on his first trip to Zillebeke. He finds the one he’s looking for, and pins it to the wall above the desk. When he’s got time he’ll go and find a frame for it, and for the second photograph he pins beside it. A young, handsome soldier looks out at him defiantly next to the picture of two old men beside a river, one of them with his head resting on the shoulder of the other.

He makes himself a drink and then settles in front of his typewriter, the rest of his unpacking forgotten. He winds a sheet of paper onto the roller and takes a deep breath, then begins typing.

10th August, 1917 (Ypres)

The rough track crunches underfoot with every step, and there have been thousands of them already.

Steps. Strides.

Purposeful, at first, when they were just setting out, full of vigour and proud to be defending King and country. Certain that if they could just knock a bit of sense into the Hun, they’d be home in no time. The start of this particular journey had been two days ago, however, and now they perform the bare minimum to set one foot in front of the other, enthusiasm dulled by the sheer monotony.

Ahead, columns and columns of men, all marching in formation, silent for the most part, the sound of hundreds and hundreds of pairs of boots setting a rhythm for all to fall into. Officers on horseback patrol the lines, keeping the men orderly and calling words of encouragement, or chastisement when a man steps out of line.

Private Ben Mitchell tips his helmet back and wipes sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. It’s a hot summer’s day, and on any other occasion he would be revelling in the sight of the verdant fields around them, the sound of the occasional birdsong, although even the birds are lethargic on a day as hot as this. Just below the horizon he can see a field being ploughed, little by little turning from green to brown in pleasingly straight lines as the horse and plough traverse back and forth. Coming from London, it’s not often he gets to see a pastoral sight such as this, and it swells his heart despite their destination; despite the blister that’s forming on his left heel.

“’S a glorious day for it, boys,” he says.

A few of the men around him nod their heads or mutter agreement. Only one, the fellow-cockney beside him, snorts. “Glorious day for meetin’ yer maker, ya mean?”

“Oi! We’ll have none of that talk, Private Brown,” says Ben.

He looks up at the cloudless blue sky, and thanks God he’s alive, at least for today, then tips his helmet squarely back onto his head and concentrates on the neck of the tall, shy private marching in front of him, red and glistening with sweat beneath the closely shorn hairline.

“Private Highway,” calls Ben. “How is it up there? You seen our destination yet?”

CODA

Callum survived Ben by only seventeen months, dying in February 1971. At the time, Frankie confided in David that she thought he’d died of a broken heart. He was physically active up to the end, but a light had faded in him, never to be recovered.

Francesca Emilia Ducroiset herself lived on for another three years, and was laid to rest in the graveyard of l’Eglise Saint Francois beside the graves of Ben and Callum. In her will, she bequeathed Riverside Farm and all its contents to David, and he subsequently renovated it and turned it into a retreat for artists and writers, along with Elize, the Belgian artist who later became his wife. They spent a long, creative and happy fifty-seven years together.

David made efforts to track down the remaining family of Callum Highway. He discovered a great-niece, living in Stratford, and before leaving to live in Zillebeke, he visited her on several occasions, telling her the story of her great uncle and meeting her son, Mark and his partner Michael.

He lived for the rest of his life in the farmhouse just outside Zillebeke. Everywhere he went, he carried in his pocket a little carved bird, it’s surface smoothed and worn from years of history and love.

When he died, it passed to his son, Benjamin Callum Beale.


End file.
